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The Country Where No One Ever Dies (2004)

by Ornela Vorpsi(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1564785688 (ISBN13: 9781564785688)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Dalkey Archive Press

review 1: From the earliest pages of this book - in which Ornela Vorpsi recalls significant, if grim, details of a girl growing up in Communist Albania - I felt absorbed . Her voice was welcoming and convincing, even though I always felt that the details were being recounted - using obstinate, ironic humour - by someone who was both smiling and on the edge of vociferation. Vorpsi grew up at a time when Enver Hoxha - the strictest of European Stalinists - was in power, leading a regime which, he was convinced, would create the most advanced society on the planet. His convictions ensured that all those who were unable to see the magnificence and munificence of his leadership; those who were unable to acknowledge the inevitability of their historical destiny, would have to be punished.... more It was for their own benefit, and the benefit of the country. Thus the father of the narrator of this short novel has to be imprisoned because he complained that there weren't any potatoes for sale at the market. What a moaner! That sort of thing is liable to dishearten people.The narrator tells of events in her family: small. close details that could be told about any family, as well as horrible and brutal happenings. From a young age her destiny as a woman is clear, or so it seems from the predictions of those around her. She will be a whore, like most women (though without renumeration). "There's nothing we can do about it", her aunt and cousin tell her. She will go into the bushes and come home with a swollen belly. Men will view her in a lascivious manner. It's her fault. Like her mother, she is beautiful. It is heartening then that the only person she confides to desiring, is another girl, Denata.The structure of the novel is not linear. Instead we are given brief, disconected glimpses into the life of the narrator, her relatives (including a wonderful Grandfather who is constantly insulting towards the government) and her neighbours. In one especially tantalising episode, she tells us of neighbours - a mother and daughter - who live a life of utter isolation from the rest of the community. But the girl notices that the neighbouring girl shares her love of reading - the one means of escape from the monotony of life - and contrives to give the girl a book, after which she never sees the girl again. There is no assurance in this life and little comfort. Only when one is sick can one expect to be treated with kindness and attention. "Live that I may hate you, and die that I may mourn you", is the motto by which people measure their concern.Vorpsi does the reader the honour of allowing us to shape some of the details of this girls life for ourselves. She tells us enough for us to develop our understanding of her particular life, and of the wider society. Then she moves on, allowing us space to imagine how we might function in such a malevolent, menacing society. She manages to both draw us close to the narrator's compelling voice; the richness of details, even the occasional glimpse of beauty and yet always maintain the distance that irony allows, so that it is always possible for her to convey the absurdities embedded in even the cruelest of these descriptions.
review 2: "è il paese dove non si muore mai. fortificati da interminabili ore passate a tavola, annaffiati dal rachi, disinfettati dal peperoncino delle immancabili olive untuose, qui i corpi raggiungono una robustezza che afida tutte le prove.la colonna vertebrale è di ferro. la puoi utilizzare come ti pare. se capita un guasto, ci si può sempre arrangiare. il cuore, quanto a lui, può ingrassare, necrosarsi, può subire un infarto, una trombosi e non so cos'altro, ma tiene maestosamente. siamo in albania, qui non si scherza" less

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